WOMEN ATHLETES

Women! This week we are talking all things exercise which is so fun for me because I am a runner, I love exercising and I’ve finally figured out the secret sauce to training. I love it when a woman is active or really wants to be active for so many reasons. We know it boosts energy, is great for your overall well-being, promotes better sleep and so much more but do we need to be sweating during every single workout? Let’s dive in.

I don’t care if you’re a runner, a personal trainer, you do pilates, cycle, yoga – it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you are getting a varying workout. For example, if you’re a runner, you don’t just ‘go run’ – you train to run. If you’re a volleyball player, you don’t just go practice volleyball, you weight train, practice lateral movements and stretch to prevent injury, you squat so you can jump.

Say you belong to a gym and workout regularly, or weight train, or do pilates – what are “game” are you training for?

For me personally, I didn’t like to lift much growing up because I was tall, and it felt odd. I did a lot of plyometrics and kept myself in shape and conditioned but here’s what I wish I would have known - the importance of pilates or yoga and slowing down. I think a lot of times as an athlete, especially a collegiate athlete, we go in and bang out a workout as fast as we can just to get our sweat on; we think it was a great workout. But was it? Were we working smarter or harder? The goal is to work smarter, and sometimes that means slowing down and really focusing on that core strength, or our glutes in that lift or movement.

Here’s a good example, on a core exercise, are you really using your core or are you stabilizing with your lower back? For your glute lift, are you really using your glutes or are you using your quads and lower back? These are both great examples of things I wish I would have known back then, and the biggest thing is this – in order to work out and have it feel effective, we don’t have to sweat and feel like dying at the end of it. Your body doesn’t need that. This is where exercising according to your cycle will really come into play. For example, on the tail end (second half) of your cycle, you’ll really want to slow down and do exercises like yoga and pilates vs. heavy training, cardio or HIIT. The first half of your cycle can be ramped up because you’ll be stronger and can handle those types of workouts better.

Let’s embrace our femininity as athletes – work smarter and you’ll see those results on the scale and that fat decreasing. This isn’t just about how you look and feel but also the results you get competition wise.

I love women athletes, I am one, I am you. Let’s keep those bodies moving and let’s keep feeling like the best version of ourselves. Don’t forget to train for your “game”, whatever that may be.